# "The Shootist" (1976 film): Does the violence seem accurate for Carson City in 1901? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 12, 2021, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225 "2021-11-12T04:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2021, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/21 "2021-11-12T23:08:49Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Did this sort of thing still go on in 1901? Still going on now. But one of the things that make movies interesting is that they are about extraordinary events. So it wouldn’t have to be common, as long as it happened at least once. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/22 "2021-11-12T23:16:55Z")
> [@solost](#): > > In town, bowlers were the most widely worn hat. [Yes, indeed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy%27s_Wild_Bunch#/media/File:Wildbunchlarge.jpg) The Wild Bunch as pictured in that famous 1900 photo were still active in 1901 and members were still being hunted for several years after, so it is often considered the close of the “Wild West” era. And as noted armed dumb-ass psychopaths who think they’re hot shit in bars are still a thing and would have been more so back in the day. It’s a bit over-dramatic-for-the-sake-of-movies, but not unbelievable. But any faro dealer who did that would have immediately fled town afterwards to avoid the law. ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/23 "2021-11-12T23:41:56Z")
[Harry Tracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Tracy) had a duel in 1902, but that was in Washington state in the Seattle area. He also subsequently killed in a shootout members of a posse that was searching for him. (As well as many other law enforcement officers who were looking for him before and after those events.) ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/24 "2021-11-13T01:17:22Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It really depended on exactly _where_ you were; for example as much as Texas is thought of as some sort of epicenter of the “Old West” or “Wild West”, most of the eastern half of the state (basically along and east of where I-35 is) had been civilized for decades by that point, and by the early 1880s, had stuff like railroads, telephones, universities, electric lighting, opera houses, and all the other trappings of civilization. > > It was in the relatively sparsely populated part of the state west of where I-35 is today, and south of San Antonio where the “Old West” kind of stuff happened, like the buffalo hunting, wars vs. the Native Americans (mostly Comanche), cattle drives, etc… I was going to dispute your contention here because I was under the impression that cattle drives ended the moment railheads were built south of Kansas. But two sources explained that even after there were railroads in Texas, it cost more to ship from them then to drive the cattle up to the traditional rail stops and sell them and let the new owners negotiate freight charges for beef on the hoof. I seem to recall that I-35 is pretty much built upon the old Chisholm Trail, the most common route from South Texas to the railhead near Abilene Kansas. The invention of Barbed Wire along with the rail access closer to where the cattle ‘called home’ effectively ended cattle drives – but apparently not all in one fell swoop. Thank you for the perspective, I had no idea there was so much culture in Eastern Texas. (Frankly, I don’t even know what was considered Texas in that era-- I have seen maps that called most of what is Colorado, New Mexico, and some of Utah Texas.) A tiny detail that will only matter to very few: I have been to Body and a few ghost towns in Arizona and here and there in the west. The architecture was very simplistic and humble in all the places I was. Often even for churches (although civic buildings, if there were any, tended to be stone or brick). Vertical planks nailed to the studs with a 1X2 or other small batten board covering each joint. Victorian homes used primarily horizontal ship-lap or tongue-in-grove siding which was manufactured in a factory which were mostly non-existent outside of New England. I suppose there might have been one or two in Kansas City as it was the gateway to the west. Building a Victorian home with groovy edged horizontal siding meant paying up front for material, then waiting half of forever for it to be delivered by wagon (even if it was only coming from Kansas City- even longer if it was coming from Vermont or Boston). ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/25 "2021-11-13T01:39:51Z")
> [@eenerms](#): > > When I lived in Carson City, there used to be a walking tour of all the historical buildings. There are some beauties there! Only after I posted my professors views did I look up the build dates of some of those buildings 1870’s and 1880’s were common dates of quite elaborate buildings with a few dating back to the 1860’s. By comparison, there are a few craftsman and even a very few Victorian homes in the greater Phoenix area but most of them were built fifty years or more after those in Carson City (and many “historical” buildings here are adobe – literal mud huts! but some are quite large and expansive). The very impressive Queen Anne style “Petersen House” in Tempe was completed in 1893 and is one of the very earliest examples of a manor house in this part of the world. I have not looked up Galveston, but I will defer to the expertise of **bump** in that matter. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > There’s a million ways to die in the West. Look out for the ice!! If a rope breaks, things go south _real_ fast! And stay away from the fair! People die at the fair (even beloved school principals). ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/26 "2021-11-13T18:16:25Z")
> [@eenerms](#): > > There are some beauties there! The Krebs-Peterson house stood in as the Rogers boarding house in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225/27 "2021-11-15T01:50:54Z")
> [@Temporary\_Name](#): > > Frankly, I don’t even know what was considered Texas in that era By 1845, the state’s boundaries had been fixed as they are today. Most of the crazy maps you see were the old Republic’s claims that were basically the Rio Grande as the SW border of the state w/Mexico (claimed as part of the Treaties of Velasco), and the Adams-Onis treaty boundaries with the US- basically it ended up being the area between the two, except they took it to be from the headwaters of the Rio Grande straight north to the 42nd parallel, and then the old Adams-Onis boundaries with the US. Basically it was half of New Mexico, a big chunk of central Colorado, bits of western Oklahoma and Kansas, and a weird little bit of south-central Wyoming. The state gave up a lot of this as part of the statehood annexation negotiations in exchange for the US assuming the Republic’s debt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shootist-1976-film-does-the-violence-seem-accurate-for-carson-city-in-1901/954225.md?page=1)